Ever since the 2.2 software update for iPhone was released I’ve been reading a lot of disgruntled comments about the new Safari interface. In 2.2 Apple made the decision to combine the URL and Google fields on one row, as apposed to the Google bar only appearing when you tap the top bar (see screenshot below). So what had to change in order to make this happen? The zoom button was removed and the refresh button was placed inside the URL field. Many people seem confused as to why they would do such a thing so I thought I would explain how these changes improve the UI and UX.

1. The zoom button did the same exact thing as tapping the URL bar so removing it doesn’t affect any functionality. What it does do is free up space for something else.

2. In the previous Safari it took 2 taps to get to the Google bar which I found particularly annoying. With the new interface it takes 1 tap to get to either the URL or Google field. This is significant because it lets the user clearly choose how they want to navigate the web, rather than forcing them into the URL field by default.